Paul Duncan and Chris Barnard have been at Ifremer this week to have the latest training on our TECHSAS logging system.

They have also seen a new online system called gforge which is used to submit bugs, keep a record of the various modules in use on each ship and can be used as a forum to keep in touch with other Techsas users and developers.

They have also toured around the French research vessel Thalassa, which was in port during their visit. Thalassa is primarily used for fisheries research, so one of their main echo sounders is a multi-frequency fish-finding echo sounder, similar to our EK-60 on RRS James Cook. They have looked at the equipment used to synchronise the sonar sources, although the person that knows all about it was on holiday. Another item of interest has been sat-comms systems employed by Thalassa, Atalante and the other Ifremer ships.

Discovery Ship to Shore Networking

RRS Discovery online communications

NMF have been looking for a means of providing the connectivity to online services we enjoy on the James Cook onboard the Discovery.

A Vsat system would have been the preferred option however a dome of this size cannot be fitted to Discovery without substantial modifications to the wheelhouse structure. The costs of such a modification cannot be justified given the remaining lifetime of Discovery.

It initially appeared that the BGAN inmarsat based coms system used in remote land locations was to be marinised. This would have given a pay to use system that could have been installed very inexpensively with a small dish. Unfortunately the system providers pulled out of this product development early last year.

The next promising development was connectivity via the Iridium satellite network. This promised much the same connectivity as BGAN i.e. a low cost metered system. Trials of the hardware have been progressing during the second half of 2008 mostly in the US. These trials have currently not proven to be successful and no commercial system is imminent.

An alternative satellite system has been available from NSSL for some time called cruise IP. It offers a good quality broadband service but has been considered unsuitable due to lack of coverage in the North Atlantic.
Brochure
http://www.satcom-solutions.com/main/productpages/brochures/Cruise-IP%20Brochure%20Oct%202008%20-%20LowRes.pdf
Coverage map
http://www.satcom-solutions.com/main/productpages/brochures/Cruise-IP%20Coverage%20Map%20041208%20Low-Res.pdf
North Atlantic coverage will change dramatically following the launch of a further satellite in February 2009. This will provide coverage north through to Iceland and south to Tenerife moving this solution from one that would only have provided coverage for a fraction of the Discovery program to one that will provide coverage for over 80% of its planned use.

Watch this space for updates.

Good News Bad News

It's a case of good news bad news today.

First the bad news.
The James Cooks Vsat link is down and likely to remain so for at least the next few days. All the indications are we have a failed Y Axis motor on the satellite dish. Every effort is being made through tests on the ship by Leighton to get to the bottom of the failure. Once we have localised the part we shall get a service engineer to the Cook ASAP.

We do good news as well.
The application for a new split level storage area partially over the workshop and also over the electronics lab has been approved along with the a much needed electric hoist. No start date yet but it is obviously for the new financial year.

Chris Barnard is new SST

Congratulations to Chris Barnard who has been promoted to the new role of Science Systems Technician for the James Cook. He will be formally taking on this role from the 1st of February. He will join Mick Myers who has now transferred from a marine post to become a technician within Platform Systems. We still have one vacancy to fill to provide a full team of staff.

Thanks to Paul Duncan for the picture.

Future Data Storage

This is a reprint of a discusion started on the NMFSS Portal User Group Pages

The options for transporting data from the Discovery and James Cook are currently to use either DVD or LTO2 tape. LTO2 tape has to be regarded as a product now past its mid life.

Tape may be inconvenient but it has proved reliable (certainly the LTO2's have). It is also very quick to produce for large amounts of data when compared to a series of DVD's.
Tape transports are now about £600 and tapes £15 with 200GB native capacity. DVD's are obviously much more user friendly, but at only 4.7GB we are starting to have difficulty producing multiple sets at the end of the cruise for all the data we have.

What are the options for the future?
Upgrade to LTO3 or 4, both are available. 400GB native and 800GB respectively.

Pros
Tape is still the professional solution for backup. Even faster transfer rates. Our experience of LTO2 reliability. Very easy to just start a tape and walk away so minimal overhead for staff at sea. Backwards compatible (will read LTO2 tapes).
Cons
We all need to buy drives. £1200 LTO3, £3000 LTO4.
Tape is not user friendly.

Blue Ray
Pros
A professional external two disk duplicator/writer is £370 or a drive for a PC just over £100. As user friendly as a current DVD. We are all going to have one soon anyway.
Cons
Life of media and robustness unknown You may get more on the disk but the data transfer rate is no faster than a DVD. Is 25GB enough of a benefit for the future?

External Hard Disk
Pros
Currently £90 for a TB The fastest transfer rate of any solution. Can update it right to the end of the cruise and then unplug.
Cons By far the most fragile solution, a mechanical drive a power supply and an interface to go wrong. It is not a backup if it is your current work and so requires proper management in use. Should be backed up professionally when you return to home institute. Any other thought and solutions please post.
Gareth Knight gck@noc.soton.ac.uk

or go to the NMF Portal

http://www.noc.soton.ac.uk/nmf/nip/nmf/nmf.php

James Cook Vsat

The James Cook is currently working at the southern most limits of Vsat coverage. The system has required rebooting over the weekend and today. You should regard the link as intermittent until the Cook moves out of its present working area latter this week.